Fourteen things you may not know about me

1. Paul Simon must be my all time favourite artist, judging by the number of times I return to listening to his albums. I do this mostly in the car where I can sing along to my heart's content.

2. I can't sing but love to. Truly, I cannot sing. I was once thrown out of mandatory choir at school. Still, I do love to sing and do so every day. In the car. I turn the music up unsocially loud (it's loud enough for me once the wing mirrors start to vibrate) and below out tunes to my heart's content.

3. I also love hymns. I will sing them unashamedly loudly. Taking my cue from my mum, I will belt those hymns out with my whole heart. Hymns (including Christmas carols) make me very emotional and I sometimes sing and cry at the same time. I have learnt that this behaviour is perfectly acceptable in Cornish churches but not in London churches.

4. I did not wear black for the first 28 years of my life. Now, I wear a black dress to work almost every day but before becoming a lawyer, I avidly believed it to be an entirely inappropriate colour to dress in. "I am not a black clothes wearing type of person", I would say to myself. I still don't wear black on the weekends. If you look in my cupboards, you'll find one set of black work clothes and other set of clothes in a riot of colours.

5. I live in constant pain and discomfort, and always have. I'm pretty used to it now so don't really notice until the pain gets to a certain level during the day. I grew up on a diet of pain killers but try hard to be less reliant on my paracetamol and ibuprofen friends. Pilates has changed my life as it allows me hope of managing the pain long term.

6. I was a pretty crafty kid and teenager, and sewed a lot. I still have a patchwork quilt I made when I was 13.

7. My school friends named by 'Dappy Robyn' and 'Quick! Slow Robyn!' I did have a tendency to wanter into my own dreamworld when I was younger. I'm trying to cultivate that skill again.

8. I gain a lot of pleasure from feeding the garden birds and like to update Matt with their comings and goings. This (obviously) makes Matt laugh at me.

9. I am terrible at spelling!

10. I believe that garlic, tomatoes and onion are an essential basis of every recipe.

11. I think I became a lawyer to prove to the universe that I could, despite its attempts to derail and discourage me. Ha! Take that universe! Then I became a kick ass lawyer, just to, you know......kick ass.

12. My favourite films as a kid were the Flight of Dragons and The Last Unicorn. Matt bought me copies when we first started going out. The Last Unicorn is still heart breaking.

13. I can't do anything without reading several books or taking a course on the topic first. I even took an e-course on blogging before I could muster the courage to publish this blog!

14. I have an irrational fear of seaweed and sea cucumbers.